The Sky is Pretty From Freedom (KREW au)

Chapter One: Haruka-jo's Secrets

It's been 7 years since my "Imprisonment" here. I've been living in this dump of a city known as Haruka-jo for almost as long as i can remember. 

Honestly, you'd think living in a big city would be rather interesting, plenty of opportunities for people-watching, sightseeing, and street food, which admittedly sounds pretty good right about now. Haruka-jo is probably the opposite. It's the kind of city you might read about in Sci-Fi, or even manga, and definitely not in the good way. It's so polluted that the sky is permanently in a sunset-state, and the streets are so crowded that you sometimes have to duck underneath houses just to walk.

 Why I refer to it as a prison is because it functions like one. The city bell rings at 7:00 AM sharp, don't be late. No sleeping in, get into your uniform right away. After that, go to the Centre Factory. Once you clock in, you must work your shift for 12 hours with no breaks. At all. If you're late, you'll end up working for 16 hours straight, with no breaks. The factory produces literally everything. New trains, new tracks. Plastic, bricks, tiles, cement. Everything used as a foundation to our city is produced. 

Before you ask, the city wasn't always like this. Overpopulation is what led to its downfall. More and more people began moving to Haruka-jo to escape their own lives in other cities. More people needed more housing. More housing needed more money. More money comes from taxes, and people get their money from their jobs. The solution? make all work mandatory. Force the citizens into 12-hour shifts, where they're paid $100 an hour. It was torture, and it still is.  Now that the Centre is wealthy enough, they don't need to pay us as much. With each year that passes, our pay is decreased. Now we get paid roughly $11 an hour.

To think there was a time in my life where I could wake up and see a blue sky just seems like a far-off dream, only reachable when my head hits the pillow and I drift off into another world. A dream where everything will be okay, and I'll get out of this place alive. At least, that's what I dream about anyway. 

But it seems I've forgotten something important. Something other than what happened before I set foot in this city, before I lost myself to a smoke-filled sky. My introduction. This will be my last legacy, what I will leave to this world when I inevitably pass. My name is Luna. Luna Noboru, and my final goal is to escape. To leave this sand-coloured city and show the world the truth.

For a while, rumours have been passed through the streets of vendors with dried-up fruits, trying to make a living, merchants selling rugs to feed their families, and people who sleep in cardboard boxes, not knowing where their next meal is coming from: that outside the walls of this prison, there is a tower. a clump of all the junk from when the city was liveable. They say if you climb it, the truth will be revealed. All of the city's secrets. Where clear, china-blue skies were all you could see, and they stretched for miles. Where the air was breathable and you could let yourself go.

There was also another side of the story. An ominous one, like a shadow looming over the story of freedom's head. It was so high, nobody could hear your cries for help, or your screams. They were drowned out by the silence and simultaneously the loudness of the city. If someone - or something- were to hurt you, there would be nobody to save you. Though, it's not like anyone would be out there, anyway. The gates have been locked for good, the key thrown outside. The walls are over a mile-high and took over 87 years to build. Nobody's escaping any time soon.

And so, it had dawned on me that evening when I was brushing my teeth: Why not dig? I live pretty close to the walls. They're not guarded, Only the gates are. If I can set up a fake rug stand and dig under a rug, I'll be out. I'll escape.